MELVILLE, Sask. – Like most farmers, Allen Schwitzer finds hooking implements to his tractor a hassle.
“We were tired of getting in and out of the tractor all the time, trying to hook up and unhook. Hooking up isn’t as bad as unhooking because you can always put the pin in, but you can’t seem to pull it back out again. So we decided there must be an easier way,” said Schwitzer, who farms near Melville.
About three years ago, he came up with a hitch that uses a hydraulic ram to operate a sliding hitch mechanism.
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It’s made out of solid, 1 1/2 inch steel, three inches wide by 30 inches long. Over the top of the bar, a jaw is welded onto pieces that go around the bar.
“There’s a tolerance around the bar so it can slide back and forth,” said Schwitzer.
The sliding pieces are made from 11/2 inch thick steel as well, with the hydraulic cylinder attached to the back.
When fully opened, the Quick Hitch has a four inch wide gap, so the tractor operator doesn’t have to back up exactly over the hole in the implement hitch.
Schwitzer must have a pin already in the implement hitch before he backs up to it.
“The pin always has to be in. There’s nothing else to catch. So you need a pin for every wagon, baler, shredder or whatever you pull. We leave a pin in every implement we have,” he said.
“What I like about it is you don’t have to line up the holes or a pin. It has a jaw that opens up. As it slides, it catches the pin and that’s it. You’ve got four inches of play. You can be out a little bit and it’ll just slide, push it around or move it to hook on.”
The cylinder has a six inch stroke, to slide the jaw into place.
No pressure
Schwitzer said the cylinder doesn’t work hard so it does not need a lot of pressure on it.
As a safety precaution, Schwitzer included a safety hole in the bar, beside the sliding jaw.
“When you close the hitch, you put a pin in so you don’t (accidentally) pull the lever and lose the load.”
Schwitzer’s original design attached to the bottom two arms on the three-point hitch. His final product has a brace coming up from each side to the top arm of the hitch.
“It’s designed to put on a three-point hitch tractor with three pins. When you put the brace on the top, to hook to the third arm, that levels your hitch as you raise and lower it. It moves it back and forth, so the hitch is always level. The other way it wouldn’t be,” he said.
An unexpected benefit came from the three-point hitch being able to raise and lower the Quick Hitch.
“When you’re backing up without the hitch, to hook up on the drawbar, you have to be perfectly level. You can’t be higher or lower. So you have to get out and jack the implement higher or lower so you can hook on. With this, you just sit in the tractor and if it’s lower, you push the three-point hitch hydraulic down lower, to even six inches off the ground, lift it up and go.”
Schwitzer now leaves his implements parked with the hitch jack cranked down. He can back up, drop the three-point hitch down low to catch the hitch pin, then lift it up to work height.
“That means you don’t even have to crank the jack up. The jack is up eight inches off the ground and that’s high enough to go.”
Another advantage comes from moving the hitch point farther back than the drawbar.
“Most tractors today, it’s very hard to see the drawbar. Especially if you’re a short person, you’ve got to pretty much stand up on the clutch to see the drawbar. With this, you’re eight inches farther back. You just have to turn your head. You don’t have to stand up to see it.”
The Quick Hitch is designed for tractors up to 150 horsepower.
“That’s just the right size for most chore tractors. We pull a 14 bale wagon with 1,500 pound bales through the snow and we don’t have problems,” he said.
At 1,500 lb. per bale, and the wagon at 10,000 lb. Schwitzer said he’s pulling around 30,000 lb. with the hitch.
“We haven’t broken any that we’ve used, even the first one. We use it for hauling hay all the time, pulling self-feeders in and out of corrals, things like that.
“Other people are using it on shredders. Anything that you use a drawbar for, you can use it. You can even use the power take-off with it if you want to,” he said.
“Or, if you want to use your drawbar, you just lift this out of the way with the three-point hitch and use the regular drawbar. You don’t have to take this hitch off at all.”
The patent pending Quick Hitch sells for $893. For more information, contact Allen Schwitzer at 306-728-4906 or visit his website at www.checotahbisonranch.com.
